Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost
their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my
early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great
discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try
to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to
me to be the most interesting and important.

I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of
northern Alabama.

The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a
native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss
ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a
book on the subject of their education--rather a singular
coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not
had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a
king among his.

My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" large tracts of
land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that
once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback
to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her
possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming
and vivid accounts of these trips.

My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides,
Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an
early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin
to Robert E. Lee.